Introducing Dimensional Ink: Letter from CEO Jack Emmert
Welcome to Dimensional Ink! Don’t mind the wet paint – we’re still a little under construction (I kid, of course). Let me tell you how all this came to be….
A few years ago, I left Cryptic Studios (which I co-founded in 2000) to join Daybreak here in Austin (which also formed back in 2000). My mandate was pretty simple: run DC Universe Online and eventually get a new game under development. The Austin studio had been part of SOE with a long legacy; it had launched Star Wars Galaxies before it turned to work on DC Universe Online.
But it started to become pretty darn obvious that the Austin studio had its own vibe and culture. DCUO was dramatically different than the other games in Daybreak’s portfolio. Our workflow was completely unique. We still used Daybreak for a lot of supporting resources (like Legal, Finance, and CS), but these were basically the same publisher roles that Perfect World and NCSoft had served for Cryptic back in the day.
Ultimately, as a team we felt that the future of Daybreak Austin lay within the developers: so we decided to carve ourselves out officially as our own studio. We still publish with Daybreak, but the future is ours to forge. Admittedly, the name was really hard to carve out. We went through weeks of voting on options, finding out they were already taken, going back to come up with new names. Finally, the studio leadership locked itself in a conference room and I refused to let people leave until a name we could use came up. And out of this arose Dimensional Ink.
The Ink part is pretty darn obvious. My career started with comic books. City of Heroes was my first game and DC Universe Online is a clear successor. But if you dig a little deeper,Star Wars Galaxies itself has its origins in four color comics too. George Lucas’ inspiration for Star Wars came from Flash Gordon, which originated in the Sunday color comics section. So comic ink has literally moved this studio forward for nearly twenty years!
Dimensional is probably not so obvious. We tried a lot of more common adjectives (like Comic, Digital, etc.) but they were all taken. In our discussions, we realized that the games we’ve made, operate, and will make all have one thing in common: they take people to iconic worlds. We take players on adventures beyond imagination. In other words, we travel to different dimensions!
And voila Dimensional Ink was born! What does this mean to all our great fans? You’ll know that it’s the devs who are guiding every game decision. There’s no corporate overlord to blame; every forum, facebook, and twitter post are being read and absorbed by yours truly and the team here. We are utterly focused on making great games that last for years and years. Nothing is changing at all with DC Universe Online. In fact, we’re cooking up lots of neat stuff for the coming year (including some oft requested characters…).
What about our new game? Well, I can’t say much right now, other than it’s a next gen MMORPG. It’s an action MMORPG, so no old fashioned click “A” and pray. And we’re hiring like crazy! We totally need YOU to make this game! Check out our openings and apply now!
You can probably find me in DCUO playing away – and I promise I’ll be posting more. So expect to hear from me again soon!
Jack Emmert
Dimensional Ink CEO
A few years ago, I left Cryptic Studios (which I co-founded in 2000) to join Daybreak here in Austin (which also formed back in 2000). My mandate was pretty simple: run DC Universe Online and eventually get a new game under development. The Austin studio had been part of SOE with a long legacy; it had launched Star Wars Galaxies before it turned to work on DC Universe Online.
But it started to become pretty darn obvious that the Austin studio had its own vibe and culture. DCUO was dramatically different than the other games in Daybreak’s portfolio. Our workflow was completely unique. We still used Daybreak for a lot of supporting resources (like Legal, Finance, and CS), but these were basically the same publisher roles that Perfect World and NCSoft had served for Cryptic back in the day.
We felt that the future of Daybreak Austin lay within the developers: so we decided to carve ourselves out officially as our own studio.
Ultimately, as a team we felt that the future of Daybreak Austin lay within the developers: so we decided to carve ourselves out officially as our own studio. We still publish with Daybreak, but the future is ours to forge. Admittedly, the name was really hard to carve out. We went through weeks of voting on options, finding out they were already taken, going back to come up with new names. Finally, the studio leadership locked itself in a conference room and I refused to let people leave until a name we could use came up. And out of this arose Dimensional Ink.
The Ink part is pretty darn obvious. My career started with comic books. City of Heroes was my first game and DC Universe Online is a clear successor. But if you dig a little deeper,Star Wars Galaxies itself has its origins in four color comics too. George Lucas’ inspiration for Star Wars came from Flash Gordon, which originated in the Sunday color comics section. So comic ink has literally moved this studio forward for nearly twenty years!
Dimensional is probably not so obvious. We tried a lot of more common adjectives (like Comic, Digital, etc.) but they were all taken. In our discussions, we realized that the games we’ve made, operate, and will make all have one thing in common: they take people to iconic worlds. We take players on adventures beyond imagination. In other words, we travel to different dimensions!
We realized that the games we’ve made, operate, and will make all have one thing in common: they take people to iconic worlds.
And voila Dimensional Ink was born! What does this mean to all our great fans? You’ll know that it’s the devs who are guiding every game decision. There’s no corporate overlord to blame; every forum, facebook, and twitter post are being read and absorbed by yours truly and the team here. We are utterly focused on making great games that last for years and years. Nothing is changing at all with DC Universe Online. In fact, we’re cooking up lots of neat stuff for the coming year (including some oft requested characters…).
What about our new game? Well, I can’t say much right now, other than it’s a next gen MMORPG. It’s an action MMORPG, so no old fashioned click “A” and pray. And we’re hiring like crazy! We totally need YOU to make this game! Check out our openings and apply now!
You can probably find me in DCUO playing away – and I promise I’ll be posting more. So expect to hear from me again soon!
Jack Emmert
Dimensional Ink CEO